


Breaking the Cycle

by EHyde



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Episode: s03e11 Mystery Spot, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EHyde/pseuds/EHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS materializes at the Broward County Mystery Spot on a Tuesday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Cycle

It was the thirteenth time that Sam had been to investigate the site of the Mystery Spot and honestly, he had almost given up on finding anything there, but, well, it wasn’t like he’d ever gotten the chance to finish. “Dean!”

“What?” Dean peered back around the corner he’d just turned, from a hallway that led to a boiler room with some extremely unstable heavy equipment hanging from the ceiling. Or so Sam had surmised, anyway, based on the loud crashing noises he had heard when Dean died there.

“Just—stay where I can see you, okay?”

“All right, already. What’s with you today?”

Sam sighed and didn’t answer. There really was _nothing_ here. But if it wasn’t the Mystery Spot itself, then what— “You hear that?” That was a new noise. There shouldn’t be a _new_ noise. He turned back to face Dean, and blinked. A blue wooden box was materializing out of thin air.

Right on top of Dean.

The box opened and Sam caught a glimpse of a skinny man in a suit before he woke up, _Heat of the Moment_ blaring from the radio, on Tuesday morning.

 

***

 

“You’re trying to tell me we’re caught in some kind of time loop?” Dean asked as they entered the diner. “Like _Groundhog Day_?” Sam nodded distractedly. Dean wouldn’t believe him until he called stuff out before it happened, caught the hot sauce—he’d been through this before. Too many times. He’d given up bothering to explain it at all because it just wasn’t worth it, but if that blue box was a lead—and it had to be a lead, because aside from the whole materializing-out-of-thin-air thing it was _different_ —and they were actually going to work this case, then Dean had to know what was going on.

Sam froze. “They’re in our booth.”

“Uh, Sam? We’ve never eaten here before. We don’t have a booth.”

“No, they—” There were two of them. Facing the entrance was a young woman, dark skinned with her hair in a high ponytail, and sitting across from her—Sam strode up to the table. Yeah, it was the man from the blue box, all right. “What, _exactly_ , is going on here?”

The man glanced up, clearly recognizing Sam. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I don’t have time for games,” said Sam. Probably that was a lie; probably he had all the time he ever wanted and more, but that, of course, was the problem. “If this time loop is your doing, I need you to stop it.” Dean caught up with him, looking at the two strangers without recognition. “Or we’ll make you stop it.”

“Hold on,” said the woman. “We just got here thirty minutes ago; we don’t have anything to do with—” She turned to the man. “A time loop?”

“A time loop, that could explain it,” said the man. “Not quite the term I’d use, of course, but it gets the idea across. Sorry about the landing, by the way,” he said, talking to Dean now. “You know, the TARDIS has never actually done that before? Materialized around people, sure, but never on top of anyone. But you’re here and … alive, so all’s well that, er, never got to the point of ending poorly, eh?”

“What?” Dean looked utterly confused. “Do you know these people?” he asked Sam.

Sam started to shake his head as the man spoke up. “I’m the Doctor, this is Martha. We’re not causing your time loop,” he said. “But we might be able to help you break it.”

Well, anything was worth a shot.

 

***

 

For some reason, Dean bought the whole time loop thing a lot quicker when it was a couple of weird British people explaining it. “Seriously? The two of you travel in time?”

“And space,” said Martha.

“Why are you here, then?”

“A man fell through a wormhole that shouldn’t exist,” said the Doctor. “We came to find out why.”

“Huh, us too,” said Sam. “Well, we came to find out why he disappeared. Is he …?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” said the Doctor. “Well, engaged. But fine. Sends his regards.”

“And the wormhole?”

“Doesn’t exist. It shouldn’t have ever existed, though obviously it did, but it’s not here now.”

“No, now there’s a time loop.”

“Yeah …”

“You said you got here thirty minutes ago,” said Dean to Martha. “That was before Sam woke up, which means it was before the loop reset, right? So how’d you end up here?”

“We were still inside the TARDIS when you died,” said the Doctor. “Time moved around us.”

“It was like watching someone rewind a tape,” Martha added. “Weird.”

“So whatever’s causing this time loop doesn’t work inside your time machine,” said Dean.

“Ship,” corrected the Doctor.

“Time machine, spaceship, whatever. So if you just gave us a lift, maybe we could get away from this whole thing.”

Sam frowned. “Could you even fit four people inside that box?”

The Doctor grinned, but then broke off. “No, I don’t think that would work. Whatever this is, it’s targeting the two of you. If this were a normal time loop—well, not that there are _normal_ time loops really, but if there were and if this was one, the loop would always be the same length. Or I suppose it could cycle longer or shorter, but the point is, it shouldn’t depend on what happens. But you said the loop always resets when Dean dies. That means at least two things. First, whatever’s causing the loop knows what’s going on inside the loop, and second, it’s personal.”

“So you think it would just follow us?”

“It’s entirely likely.”

“But you’re saying it’s some _one_ doing this? Not some random phenomenon?”

“Yeah, and that’s weird … there’s not a lot that has the power to do this.” He looked into Sam’s eyes. “I don’t suppose you have any enemies that—well, that aren’t human, do you?”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. Dean actually started laughing. “… would you like a list?” asked Sam.

“You’ve—dealt with aliens before?” Martha asked. Dean’s laughter turned to coughing.

“No, not aliens, we—are you all right?” Dean was still coughing. “Shit.”

 

***

 

The Doctor stood behind the open door of the TARDIS, Martha at his side. “What just happened?” she asked.

“That was the reset, I take it,” said the Doctor. “I think he choked on a bit of pancake.”

“… what?”

“… you don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?” Martha asked. “We just landed, there was a man out there, and then everything went backwards.”

“And not the first time, either. I suppose it _would_ affect you.”

“What would?”

“We landed in the middle of a time loop,” the Doctor explained. “One day that keeps repeating itself. We’ve been through it once already, but the reset made you forget. Would’ve made me forget, too, if I weren’t a time lord.”

“How do we break out of a time loop?”

“ _We_ could get out of it easy; we could just leave,” said the Doctor. “But that wouldn’t fix anything. Fortunately, after experiencing that firsthand, so to speak, I think I have a better idea of who we’re dealing with. Come on, let’s go into town.”

They waited outside the diner this time, and a few minutes later, Sam and Dean showed up. “Good, you’re here,” said Sam. “You remember?”

The Doctor nodded.

“What is going on?” Dean asked. “Do you know these people, Sam?”

“Hi, I’m the Doctor, this is Martha.” Well, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to introduce himself more than once. “Come with me, I’ve got an idea.”

“An idea about what?” Dean asked. “Can’t we at least get breakfast?”

“No!” said the Doctor and Sam together.

“What’s the plan?” asked Sam.

“Just a small trip in the TARDIS, sidestep the timeline a bit.”

“I thought you said that wasn’t going to work.”

“Nahh … I said I didn’t _think_ it was going to work, but the point is, you don’t give up, not until you’ve tried absolutely everything. And then you still don’t give up …” He waited … there. A man stepped out of the diner. “ … isn’t that right?”

The man scowled at him. “You do realize I can follow you whenever you take them?”

“Yes, but that’s not what this is about, is it?” the Doctor asked.

The man shifted, growing, to a human eye, probably younger-looking, though to a time lord he seemed much, much older. Shifted, apparently, into someone Sam and Dean recognized, though the Doctor seriously doubted those two knew what they were really dealing with. “Didn’t we kill you?” Dean asked, as if to confirm that.

The archangel Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I suppose you did _try_ ,” he conceded.

Time stopped. Well, for the humans, at least.

“You’re meddling, Time Lord,” said Gabriel. “This is none of your concern.”

“You’re messing with time. That makes it my concern,” said the Doctor. “’Course, there’s not much I can do about it, one lone time lord against an archangel. Back when Gallifrey stood united, we could have put a stop to this, but even then it’d have been tricky. But they’re all gone now.”

“That’s … not how I’d have gone about getting me to back down, I’ll give you that,” said Gabriel.

“Point is, I know how much power this takes,” said the Doctor. “It’s a lot of power, even for an archangel. Not the sort of power you’d use if this were just one of your everyday tricks. In fact, not the sort of power you’d use if you thought there was much of a future worth saving that power for. All that power to—what? Convince that boy that he can’t fight fate, when you’ve been on the run from yours for a thousand years?”

“You don’t know—”

“I know,” said the Doctor, “what it is to watch my people destroy each other, and I know what it is to run away, and what it is to realize I can’t run anymore. But when I stopped running, I didn’t give in. I fought. Those boys? They’re not running.” He paused. “I also know that the human race is doing well and good oh … several billion years from now, so you might just want to give Sam and Dean a chance. Just saying.”

 

***

 

Sam woke up,  _Back in Time_ blaring from the radio. Wait, what? That was … “What day is it?” he asked.

“Um, Wednesday? It generally comes after Tuesday?” Dean paused. “Hey, are you missing a chunk of yesterday? Because I don’t remember a thing after we ran into those British guys and … was that the Trickster?"

Sam shook his head. “Whatever happened, I’ll take it,” he said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“But if the Trickster’s up to something, shouldn’t we—”

“We’re leaving,” said Sam. “Whatever the Trickster was up to, it’s over.”

“Can’t we at least get breakfast?”

If it was over, it was over, right? It shouldn’t matter if they ate here or on the road. But … “I never want to see the inside of that diner again.”

“We didn’t even go in there yesterday,” said Dean. “But fine. Whatever you say.”

Sam wished he knew what had happened, exactly. The Doctor had confronted the Trickster and … made him stop? What _was_ the Doctor, exactly?

… whatever he was, he was waiting by the Impala. He nodded at Sam and Dean as they approached. “Is this really over?” Sam asked.

“ _This_ is,” said the Doctor. “The … Trickster … has taken an interest in you. I couldn’t say why. But he won’t try this again, at any rate.”

“Good,” said Sam. “And—thanks. For whatever you did.”

“Talked some sense into him, I hope. We’ll see how long it lasts.” Sam nodded. “Good luck,” the Doctor added as Sam stepped into the Impala. “And don’t give up.”

“All right, what, exactly, happened back there?” Dean asked as they drove away.

Sam sighed. He wasn’t sure _he’d_ ever know. “I’ll explain later.”

 


End file.
